No Monday
Morning Quarterbacks!!

"The test of a
first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the
same time and still retain the ability to function," said writer and
passionate Princeton football fan, F. Scott Fitzgerald. "Genius is the
ability to put into effect what is on your mind."

Given his sentiments
and the paradoxical nature of football, it is no surprise
that Fitzgerald loved football. Players must hold two opposed ideas in
mind at the same time--competition and teamwork--and still retain the ability
to function. "Competition" is a rivalry between people for territory
or resources. "Teamwork" is people working collaboratively towards a
common goal. To succeed in football, players must function while
simultaneously holding these ideas in mind.

Coaches must put into
effect what is on their mind.

Football is a game of
multiple equlibria. Multiple equilibria means there are many possible
satisfying solutions to a problem. Because a professional football coach has
multiple solutions to his problem, a coach is always vulnerable to
hindsight and second-guessing commonly referred to as "Monday Morning
Quarterbacking." (If the chef prepared fish for the restaurant customers
and the customers did not like the fish, then obviously he should have prepared
beef.) However, multiple equilibria also lead to monopolistic dominance, rather
than perfect competition. In other words, because multiple solutions to every
problem exist, a coach theoretically can design a solution to his team's
problems that will eliminate competition and guarantee victory.

How can a coach design
such a solution? It appears that to do so, a coach must be able to see
everything that happens on a football field simultaneously. In When Pride Still Mattered,
David Maraniss wrote that Gerald Lodge, a linebacker at West Point while Vince
Lombardi was an assistant coach there, said that "Lombardi was as valuable
on defense as on offense because of his uncommon ability to notice several
events simultaneously along the line of scrimmage as though they were happening
in slow motion and in isolation.

'I would come out after
the first series of plays on defense and Lombardi would get me on the phone and
tell me what to tell each of the players on the whole defense--what the
opposing team was doing differently than we expected and how to adjust to it.
The ends were too split; tighten up; the quarterback is tipping off his passing
plays, subtle things like that. It is hard to watch more than one or two people
at a time, but he could see everybody and just rattle it off,' Lodge
said."

Bill Walsh had the same
uncommon ability. "Fortunately, in my case, I can envision 11 men at one
time. I can still see it,"
Walsh said in an interview with FoxSports.
"That was at the height of my career. I had a real feel for what everybody
was doing. I enjoyed designing plays to beat defenses. But I also enjoyed the
players themselves."

So how did Lombardi and
Walsh overcome this paradox of multiple equilibria so much more effectively
than other coaches and put what was on their minds into effect? It appears that
the answer is that both coaches accepted the paradox, perhaps even embraced the
paradox, because to do otherwise would have been to deny their very selves. In
What It Takes to Be #1, Lombardi's son, Vincent Lombardi, Jr., wrote
"paradox is a universal law." In When Pride Still Mattered,
Lombardi Jr. said, "People say the only constant in life is change. I say
the only constant in life is paradox. My father's life was a paradox.
Everything about him."

Walsh was similar. Fred
Von Appen, who coached with him on the 49ers and at Stanford, told an
interviewer in 1993, "He's a complex man, somewhat of an enigma. I gave up
trying to understand him a long time ago. In a way, he has the kind of
personality that creates a love-hate relationship. He's not always the
distinguished, patriarchal guy television viewers are used to seeing on the
sidelines. He's a very competitive guy, and he can be scathing, especially in
the heat of battle. There have been times when I gladly would have split his
skull with an ax. Then again, he's the greatest."

In light of the
inherent paradoxical nature of both coaching and the game of football, QC will
strive to not second-guess any coach at any time. QC quantifies coaching by
objectively describing play design with statistics. QC does not judge or rank
coaches.